The Use of Social Media in Marketing

Posted: January 4th, 2023

The Use of Social Media in Marketing

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The Use of Social Media in Marketing

Introduction

Background Information

Social media serves as a platform for public around the globe to discuss their opinions and issues. The growth of technology now makes it possible for institutions and corporations to use social media in various purposes, including communication and marketing and selling online. The technology makes it easy to reach out to various stakeholders with the fact that many people are now subscribed to various social media avenues making it easy to get audience. Organizations seem to know the potentiality of social media and are striving to show their presence and products through some of the leading interactive sites. It appears that social media delivers information to the audience very fast and permits the use of other appealing features such as videos and images to make the interactive process more complete and appealing. Despite the good features associated with social media, users need to watch out for some of the negative aspects they are likely to experience when interacting online to avoid the threats associated with the technology. The growth of technological operations offers a good chance for hackers and other ill-intentioned groups to manipulate the systems, which often lead to devastating loss.

Objectives

The paper seeks to achieve various objectives regarding the use of social media in marketing practices. First, it seeks to inform about the meaning of social media, and to elaborate how the concept works, and then proceeds to inform about the positive and negative effects of social media marketing in an organizational context. The study seeks to elaborate how the development of social media marketing now facilitates how businesses reach out to their consumers by taking different approaches from the traditional media sources. It also seeks to find out whether adopting proper social media policies and training workers is effective in improving how the firm employs social media to market.

Overview of the Paper

The paper begins by examining the literature on social media and how it is applicable in marketing, as well as on how it impacts on consumer behavior. It emerges that even as social media has significant effects on marketing practices, it is apparent to look at some of the negative aspects that could derail its usage. Even though some leading multinational corporations record positive outcome from their reaching out to consumers through social media, others experience considerable challenges due to lack of suitable strategies and mishaps. The study asserts that training workers and embracing suitable strategies may help the organization to employ social media in the right way to communicate and market products and services to consumers.

Literature Review

Introducing Social Media

Social media could be termed as interrelated computer-aided technologies that enhance the formation or sharing of ideas, career desires, information and other forms of expressions through virtual networks and communities. Due to the availability of numerous social media platforms that are currently, defining the technological innovation takes various approaches (Owusu-Acheaw & Larson, 2015). Social media, therefore, could refer to interactive web 2.0 internet-related applications, or user-formed content such as comments, videos, photos, data, and posts created through online communication (Owusu-Acheaw & Larson, 2015). Social media could also refer to the service-specific identities and profiles for the app or website that are formulated and managed by social media firms or to the online social networks that connect users through their profiles (Owusu-Acheaw & Larson, 2015). Typically users enjoy social media services through web-based technologies on laptops and desktops, or can download operations that give social media functions to their mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones. As users interrelate via the electronic avenues, they create highly interactive stages through which various groups can talk about and share the content posted on the media platform.  

The networks created through social media may transform the way groups of people communicate or interact or stand with their opinions. Such forms of communication introduce significant and persistent transformations to communication between individuals, communities, and organizations (Owusu-Acheaw & Larson, 2015). The transformations are the focus of developing fields of technology. Social media vary from the traditional electronic media such as radio broadcasting and TV broadcasting and from paper-based media in many forms, including immediacy, reliability, performance, quality, coverage, and interactivity (Owusu-Acheaw & Larson, 2015). Furthermore, social media works in a dialogic transmission mechanism, which refers to a system that connects many senders to multiple receivers. The approach makes it different from the traditional media, which functions using a mono-logic broadcasting style, which only permits the use of one source to many receivers as it happens with a radio station that relay the same programs across the city, or a newspaper which is distributed to many readers (Owusu-Acheaw & Larson, 2015). Some of the widely used social media avenues with more than 100 million registered users include Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, Weibo, WhatsApp, WeChat, Snapchat, QQ, Telegram, Tumblr, Viber, and Baidu Tieba among many others (Akram & Kumar, 2018). Even though social media can help to advance a person’s sense of networking with online or real groups and can be an efficient communication tool for profit and not-for-profit entities, it is vital to consider the wide range of positive and negative effects of social media use.

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing has grown due to the widening number of active users on social media avenues. It is refers to the use of social media websites and platforms to advertise or promote a service or product. Although the terms digital advertising and e-marketing are still applied by scholars, social media marketing is gradually more becoming trendy for both surveyors and practitioners (Saravanakumar et al., 2012). Most organizations that utilize social media platforms in marketing inculcate systems that have built-in data analysis capabilities, which make it possible for them to follow up on the successes and development of commercial campaigns. Corporations these days relate with a broad range of stakeholders by marketing on social media, including their purchasers, members of staff, members of the public, and the media personnel (Saravanakumar et al., 2012). On a tactical level, social media marketing involves the management of marketing practices and the formation of a company’s desired social media behavior or culture. Several factors drive many companies nowadays to embrace the use of social media marketing.

One of the leading driving factors that push corporations to use social media is most of the buyers are on social media. The paper by Saravanakumar et al. (2012) informs that about 71% of the Canadian population is ascribed to at least a single social medial profile with the number of the global social media users projected to surpass 3 billion people by 2021. Facebook alone has about 2.2 billion users, Instagram 850 million users, and Twitter 350 million users, thereby suggesting someone can attract a lot of buyers through such avenues (Saravanakumar et al., 2012). Social media offers a great opportunity for companies that want to reach online buyers with so many customers using social media on daily basis. The business will find it easy linking with their target buyers if it is active on platforms that they utilize regularly (Appel et al., 2012). Today, organizations nowadays seem to understand that they should not make the audience come to them, but rather they need to reach out for the audience. It is the reason why if a business is not already on social media it could be missing out on a vital opportunity to link with their buyers and engage new and innovative ideas.

Other than the major drives to employ social media marketing, communication via the online avenues have profound effects on consumer decision-making and behavior. Consumer socialization theory, which is a fundamental lead for marketers, stipulates that communication among purchasers harm their emotional, behavior, and cognitive aspects. This is evident in the way marketing and selling on social media has influenced consumer behavior in many ways. It happens that the suggestion by friends and followers on social media could help customers make wise decisions, especially on how consumers perceive purchasing, the brand attitudes, and its advertising methods. Usually, buyers would be attracted to consumers that draw the most attention, and once top brands realized that they started to pay attention to social media marketing. The effects of social media on user behavior can be seen in any products or services, and this would persuade buyers with regard to their level of quality, price, or brand. A 2010 study at an American university with a considerable sample of buyers to find out the type of items bought, and their prices revealed that buyers are buying either pricey or cheap products, and are doing so while following suggestions from their friends or followers. Depending on the recommendations on purchases, 60% of all respondents used Face Book as their social media platform when they got a product recommendation. 37% of the users utilized Twitter, and based on these outcome social media has great influence on social media behavior. The study showed the good image of a product or brand can push the buyers to make decisions on whether to purchase them or not, and when the buyers’ friends on social media likes or shares a product or service it creates the urge for the other to purchase. The connection between social media and customer decision-making insinuates that social media impacts on the consumers’ purchasing intentions, brand attitudes, and advertising attitudes. The social media avenues a firm uses may not necessarily alter a buyer’s decision-making, but might have a powerful effect on either to buy or not.

Already, some of the leading companies globally have strategies on how to employ social media marketing, and as it appears, they experience beneficial outcome. Amazon that is indeed one of the leading online retailers globally is an example of a company that utilizes social media to reach out to its consumers, and it is not surprising that the marketing approach yields significant outcome (Amazon, 2020). Even though the online seller largely depends on its website to market and sell its items, the group has accounts with different social media channels such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter through which marketers from the firm can garner customer reviews and make necessary adjustment (Amazon, 2020). The need to understand the customers’ review is synonymous with the company’s selling approach on its website where every item that is listed on the platform is accompanied with a star rating given by the consumers, and normally includes many reviews left intentionally by previous purchasers of the same item. Amazon’s reliance on the customers’ reviews requires it to be keen while settling on a social media platform to ensure that other than only using the avenues where the buyers hang out the most, it settles on those that allow consumers to give their views about the items they purchase (Amazon, 2020). The careful selection of the online platform makes it possible for the firm to optimize and cultivate its content rather than being part of every channel yet the presence or impact is not very strong (Amazon, 2020). Today, Amazon has at least 28.8 million likes on Facebook, and this is incredible judging on the numbers that other companies have. The company strives to respond to as many comments on Facebook, and provides helpful links to its stakeholders in a swift and polite manner. Amazon, for instance, would answer questions so truthfully, and would not hesitate to respond even if someone expresses dissatisfaction or frustration.

Analysis

Based on the examination of the literature on social media and its application in marketing and advertising, it is apparent users must be wary of the positive and negative of sides of the technological innovation. The study affirms that the company should not only rejoice of the benefits it is likely to gain by using social media, but also look on the negative aspects of the communication and marketing tool. The idea that some leading corporations have recorded positive results with the use of social media as it happens with Amazon and Nike, other SMEs and multinational corporations have failed to implement measures that would make them witness positive outcome in their application of such innovative tools.

Some companies, thanks to effective management and planning on social media use, continue to build their reputation and to generate more revenue. From its iconic logo to the ‘Just Do It’ slogan which is already perceived to be a component of pop culture, Nike is one of the highly known brands in the entire world. The retail giant has traversed past the domain of selling a wide assortment of products to branding itself as a lifestyle. It is not surprising; therefore, that Nike is heading in its use of social media to reach out to its stakeholders on various issues. The business takes a dissimilar approach to expand its online presence by forming distinct pages for its products while targeting a wide range of buyers. The team in charge of social media marketing at the company adopts an approach that continues to evolve, and is now concentrating on advertisements than public content on social platforms (Nike, 2019). The company is also quick to pull out some of the controversial videos and posts that could affect the group’s reputation (Nike, 2019). The company, for instance, deleted the “Pro Hijab” campaign on YouTube and Facebook after it generated mixed reactions from the audiences (Nike, 2019). The effective measures Nike employs to use social media earns it at least 43 million fans on its Nike Football page on Facebook, and 91 million followers on Instagram.

Another company that is reaping huge benefits from its application of social media is Coca Cola that accepts the role of social media in marketing brands has changed from its product-oriented to a more content-driven model. The marketing team at the beverage maker understands that as social media has transformed and grown, the buyers’ thirst and expectations for authentic and original content have matured (Coca Cola, 2019). The group keeps its buyers in touch by constantly rolling out campaigns in a bid to market the products. The company, for instance, created a heavy impact on the need to recycle in 2017 through its “Love Story” ad that ran in some of the leading social media avenues (Coca Cola, 2019). Even though the campaign mostly targeted consumers in Great Britain its effect became worldwide. Coca Cola gained global fame with the “Taste the Feeling” campaign that aired from 2016. Other than expressing the diversity if a person, the ad offers an insight into the everyday encounters and feelings that comes with taking Coca Cola (Coca Cola, 2019). The group continues to innovate how it sells via social media and hopes to become more effective in the coming years.

Even as the other companies seem to be stable in their use of social media to communicate and market to members of the public, some companies that many would think have no problems with such platforms experience considerable constraints due to some challenges in reaching out to the stakeholders via such avenues. Cheng (2018) while giving her roundup on some of the major corporate social media mistakes of 2018 says that nothing goes unnoticed on the internet, and as more organizations are learning, a seemingly slight error on a social channel may have drastic effects on the entire business (Cheng, 2018). Many Twitter users did not take calmly Amazon’s CEO’s tweet on April 2018 during the celebration of Earth Day when he commented and posted about the how Norwegians frequently use dogs to sled (Cheng, 2018). The tweet caused uproar from various quarters at a time when the American multinational company faced accusations of employee strikes due to low wages and improper warehouse conditions. Sarah Silverman (comedian), for instance, reminded Bezos about the poor state of his employees who depends on the government’s aid for subsidies (Cheng, 2018). The e-commerce retailer had to increase the minimum wage for its employees serving in the warehouse section to $15 after experiencing so much criticism and media counterattack. Miele, one of the leading appliance manufacturers in Germany, on the other hand, had to withdraw a photo it shared on Facebook during the 2018 International Women’s Day (Cheng, 2018). Many thought that the photo of four women looking happy and contended over a dryer and a washer rekindled the 1950s stereotype, and as a result the manufacturer erased the post a few hours later (Cheng, 2018). Many other leading companies encounter such slight mishaps, which calls for more insight to understand how to use such platforms in the appropriate manner.

The idea that some major companies still experience constraints to apply social media to reach out to various stakeholders calls for the adoption of mechanisms that would promote effectiveness. It emerged during the 2015 Big 4 Conference in San Francisco where about 200 people convened to expound their knowledge on the changing marketing and personal relationship (PR) trends that employee engagement is one of the most underused, but very appropriate way of social selling approach (Cision, 2019). It emerged that by training employees on how to use social media in the most appropriate manner, organizations can reach greater audiences, develop better brand awareness, widen sales, advance recruitment efforts, and improve worker engagement. Lauren Friedman who serves as the Director of School of Business Enablement at Adobe said during the congregation that the company does not only encourage its members of staff to utilize social media, but empowers them as well on what they need to know (Cision, 2019). Other than engaging workers by training them, companies should play a part by doing away with policies that discourage workers from using social media sites (Cision, 2019). It emerges in some scenarios that employers mainly block reach to social media avenues, which cut’s the link between the members of staff and consumers.

Possible Limitations

Even though social media proves to be a powerful marketing tool for companies in the contemporary times, the groups employing the approach need to be watchful of the possible limitations that could affect their usability of the technology. Failure to consider how using social media could be detrimental to the business operations could yield more devastating outcome that may affect performance or the realization of goals and objectives. It is always important, therefore, for the firm to consider the merits as well as the demerits of using the application. One of the possible demerits of using social media to conduct business operations is the system is subject to hacking such that anyone’s private data could be easily violated if not properly handled and secured (Saravanakumar et al., 2012). The hackers may end up using the information in the wrong way, or may end up committing personal identity theft. It is the reason why a company needs to embrace suitable ways of safeguarding the data such as the use of passwords and encryption to make it hard for unauthorized persons to reach the content. Other than the possibility of hacking, the groups using social media for marketing and communication processes should prevent the addiction that is likely to develop among the workers. Rafla et al. (2014) write that social media is spectacular in the way it has the capacity to addict users in a way that they cannot understand. The company should be more careful when it assigns younger employees to stations that use social media because according to Rafla et al. (2014), the millennials are at a higher risk of being addicted to social media use. More importantly, the company should watch out for the possibility of damaging the corporation’s reputation because social media can easily damage a person or the company’s reputation by spreading false information online. It is because of this reason why the marketer should verify all the information it posts on social media to avoid being a victim of spreading information that is not true and likely to damage the group’s reputation.

Organizations or businesses that employ social media marketing enjoy a unique way of connecting with their buyers and other stakeholders; however, these organizations must guard their digital data as well as intimately observe the comments on the social media platform they utilize. A survey conducted on 1230 IT specialists from 33 nations exposed that social media errors caused companies a combined $4.2 million in damages in the year 2010-2011 (Akram & Kumar, 2018). The top three social media complications a company experienced during the past year included workers sharing a lot of information in public meetings, increased exposure to litigation, and exposure of private information (Akram & Kumar, 2018). Due to the virtual environment of the internet, an error by a single worker has in some instances shown to end in harmful outcomes for businesses. A notable example of a mishap in the use of social media was when Kenneth Cole, a cloth designer based in America, tweeted in 2011 concerning the Arab Spring events in Egypt and later ending up drawing so much controversy (Akram & Kumar, 2018). Cole in his tweet created the impression that millions of people have joined in the revolution in Egypt, which to critics appeared to be an overstatement. It was rumored Cole had a collection of data regarding the ongoing events in Egypt, and this drew much criticism from the public (Akram & Kumar, 2018).

Future Research

It is now clear that social media permits people to interact freely with other people, and gives numerous ways for marketers to reach out and indulge with buyers. Future investigators and researchers need to pay attention to how technology change will impact on the development of such communication and marketing platforms, and how this is likely to influence business operations. It is clear that as technology continues to change, the ways of producing social media avenues and how they meet users’ needs will change. Siddiqui and Singh (2016) capture in their article that social media is always transforming because as we know it today is not the same it was a year ago. The constant innovation happening on the technology is evident in major platforms that constantly add new services and features (Siddiqui & Singh, 2016). The future researchers should also address how change in consumer behavior could influence or affect the use of social media as communication and marketing tools in business. Researchers in the coming years should highlight how consumers and sellers alike are likely to prefer social media avenues that meet their specific needs. The future research, however, should not fail to address the obstacles businesses are likely to experience in the coming years and give appropriate guidance with regard what needs to happen to overcome the challenges (Watts, 2003). The researchers in the coming years should understand that the nature of problem is likely change and they will require better and more innovative approaches to overcome the issues (Siddiqui & Singh, 2016). The future researchers, for instance, should inform about how vast awareness with the concept of big data and artificial intelligence (AI) is likely to ease communication and marketing via social media (Siddiqui & Singh, 2016). Still, the researchers should emphasize on the need for training because empowerment is now only relevant now, but also in future.

Conclusion

The study concludes that training members of staff and embracing proper policies could lead a company to use social media in the right manner to reach out to the stakeholders. It appears that whereas social media facilitates communication and marketing over online platform, it is vital to watch out for some of the threats associated with the innovation tool. Organizations that use the interactive platforms find it easier to interact with their stakeholders in various ways, which makes it appealing to users. The study shows how other than sending messages, marketing and communicating using social media makes allows for sending of images, videos, as well as to make online interaction with all the parties involved. Many people are now registered to the various social media avenues, and using the platforms to market offers the chance to reach out to many people. Businesses acknowledge that the technology offers the chance to reach out to new markets, with younger buyers appearing to be part of leading consumers because of the fondness this population has with social media. Businesses, however, must not forget the negative effects associated with social media use, and take appropriate measures towards preventing any fatalities. The technology is subject to hacking, and companies can make slight mishaps that could affect their performance. It is also necessary to watch out for the addiction that comes with using social media to avoid using the platform in the wrong manner. Future investigators need to unravel some of the issues that continue to be problematic in the current usage of social media to achieve a scenario where the communication and marketing platforms have significant effect on users. More importantly, current operators should draw valuable lessons from the report and apply them in their services to avoid experiencing hurdles when trying to communicate and market through social media avenues.

References

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